ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
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young larvae, Yet, as the old saying is, “One may as well eat the devil as drink his 
broth,” 
On Dec. 28th, 1866, Mr. W. C. Fish, of East Falmouth, Massachusetts, sent me a 
further supply of these same apple-maggots, with the following account of their 
operations in his vicinity : 
“ This insect is very numerous in this section of country, being much more abundant 
in the thin-skinned summer and fall apples than in the later varieties. It seems to in¬ 
crease every year. Within a few rods of the house in which I am writing, stand five or 
six trees of the old-fashioned variety called Hightop or Summer Sweets. On these trees 
the crop of apples is annually rendered worthless by this insect, which tunnels the 
fruit in all directions. Apples which, when taken from the tree, appeared sound, would 
in the course of a few weeks, as soon as they became mellow, be found to be alive with 
these pests, sometimes to the number of six or more in each apple, although not com¬ 
monly as many as that. I have found that, in most cases, the fruit had been previously 
perforated by the larva of the Codling Moth (Carpocapsa, pomonella,) before becoming 
inhabited by this insect.” 
During the same winter I also received pupae of this same insect from my intelligent 
correspondent, Isaac Hicks, of North Hempstead, Long Island, New York, who finds it 
a great pest there. According to Dr. Trimble, the State Entomologist of New Jersey, 
“this new and formidable enemy of the apple prevails generally throughout the Hud¬ 
son River country, but has not yet reached New Jersey.” (N. Y. Sera. Tribune , July 
17, 1867.) Mr. Calvin Ward, of Vermont, complains of a larva, which is probably 
identical with the Apple-maggot, boring his apples for the last few years in all direc¬ 
tions, and adds that “this insect does more injury to him than all other' insects 
combined,” and that “in 1865 it injured his apples to the extent of one-half their 
value, though it is not the only one that preys on them ; but in 1866 it has not been so 
bad.” ( Pract . Entom. II. pp. 20 —21.) Certainly, from Mr. Ward’s description, the 
larva which he complains of could not have been the common Apple-worm, though it 
may possibly have been Dr. Fitch’s Apple-midge, respecting which see above, page 19. 
In July, 1867, from larvae and pupae received from Connecticut, Massachusetts and 
New York in the preceding winter, I bred several specimens of the perfect fly, a magni¬ 
fied figure of which is given herewith. (Fig. 2.) It will be seen at once that it has no 
resemblance whatever to the Codling Moth or moth of the Apple-worm, which is a 
four-winged insect with easily removed scales on its wings, like all other moths or 
“millers,” and belongs to the Order Lepidoptera ; whereas the perfect insect of the 
Apple-maggot is a two-winged fly, with no scales whatever on its wings, and belongs to 
the same Order (Diptera) as mosquitoes, gnats, midges, horse-flies, house-flies, &c., and 
to the same great group as our common house-fly. The larvse also of the two insects 
are notably unlike. The Apple-worm (fig. 2b) is a cylindrical, 16-legged caterpillar 
with a large, dark, horny head and a dark horny patch behind its head ; the Apple-mag¬ 
got (fig. 2a) is a legless maggot, tapered to a point in front and not very unlike the 
larvae of the different blow-flies that lay their eggs, or “fly-blows” as they are common¬ 
ly called, on meat. Even the pupae are quite dissimilar. • For that of the Apple-worm 
shows the wflngs of the future moth, soldered indeed to the side of the body, but still 
plainly visible, while that of the Apple-maggot is what is technically termed a “coarc- 
tate” pupa ; that is to say, instead of the larva moulting its skin to assume the pupa 
state, the larval skin is retained wiiole and unbroken, although greatly contracted in 
length, by the pupa, so that the true pupa can only be seen by dissecting away the 
